What is It?
MDG Technology for TRAK is a plugin for Sparx Systems' Enterprise Architect UML modelling tool that supports TRAK - a pragmatic enterprise architecture framework. The important ideas behind TRAK are provided in the defining documents and repeated on the trak-community site.
In brief it provides:-
- a template structure and sample TRAK views for a model
- TRAK views for the 'New Diagram' wizard
- toolbox palettes of objects and relationships for each TRAK view
- context-sensitive creation of relationships between model objects
More detail is provided under 'Features'.
Where Does this Fit In?
The MDG for TRAK is an implementation of TRAK (for the Sparx Systems' Enterprise Architect UML modelling tool).
TRAK is defined logically (free of implementation or solution) by 3 documents:
- an overall set of requirements (e.g. colour, conformance with TRAK, Bye Laws etc)
- the allowed elements and relationships - TRAK Metamodel
- the TRAK Architecture Viewpoints (views) which show these
TRAK can be implemented in a wide range of modelling tools and architecture description languages (a term taken from ISO 42010) such as UML, BPMN etc can be used to represent parts of the TRAK metamodel and therefore can be used in creating TRAK architecture views.
What is a 'MDG Technology'?
'MDG' stands for Model-Driven Generation and it provides a method for Enterprise Architect to bundle together everything it needs to extend the basic functionality of the tool. Placing a XML in a location that Enterprise Architect looks in on start-up provides added functionality.
In providing a MDG Technology file we extend the basic behaviour of Enterprise Architect to add palettes, views and object types needed for modelling using TRAK.
The MDG Technology for TRAK plugin is available here ...
What Files Are Needed?
MDG Technology for TRAK consists of 2 component files:-
- TRAK_MDG.xml. This contains the UML profile for TRAK defining the objects, definitions of toolbox palettes, views and allowable links.
- TRAK_model_template.xml. This defines the structure and contents of a typical TRAK model and is used as the blueprint for Enterprise Architect when creating a new TRAK model.
Both files need to sit in the same directory and Enterprise Architect has to be told to look for the directory containing these files (Settings | MDG Technologies | Advanced) and then it has to be enabled.
The native platform for Enterprise Architect is Windows. Enterprise Architect will, however, run on a Mac using Crossover, Parallels or VMware Fusion and similarly on Unix.
The plugin is not an executable file.
The files can be downloaded from the Project Summary Page on SourceForge.